


the last goodbye

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Introspection, Love Confessions, Optimism, Outer Space, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Quake Destroyer of Worlds, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 19:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Daisy realizes she can't risk being the cause of so much destruction.





	the last goodbye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).



In the end goodbyes are easy, because the other option is too terrible to contemplate.

The team pleads with her, of course.

Daisy doesn’t want a scene.

The last time she left them she did it so premeditatedly, in the middle of the night, minimizing the chances of discovery. She needed a head start that time, but it wasn’t only that. She didn’t want to have to face the team she was leaving. She didn’t want to falter if they asked her to stay. It was selfish, even if the leaving itself was done for the team’s sake.

Now she’s not doing it for the team. It’s bigger, and she has to trust they’ll understand that.

It’s different this time.

Daisy smells the stale air of the station’s corridor, and while she explains why she won’t take the elevator to the lower floors with the rest of them she realizes why this is different from last time. She’s not _leaving_ them. The team is leaving her. Leaving her behind. Habit makes that easier, but it also makes it hard to swallow and hard to breath, because she remembers herself as a child, all those time her foster parents left her in the orphanage and just drove away and she never saw any of them again.

She feels detached once she has made the decision.

She silently thanks May for holding Fitz and Simmons back, and she concentrates on not registering tears, expected in two of the cases, oddly hard to swallow in the third.

She appreciates Mack shaking her head like he’s so disappointed in her even more than she appreciates the fist-bump that follows.

Elena calls her “tonta” many times and demands Mack uses her muscles to bring her with them forcefully. Daisy is not quite sure that’s a joke, and it makes her a bit happy. It makes her happier when she sees Coulson’s expression reassuring her that the team will respect her choice.

Such an easy choice, after all.

She can’t believe she’s never going to see them again but - she’s gone through that before, she’s used to. She’s used to losing families. The idea that she might cause the death and suffering of billions is far scarier than a loneliness that is familiar to her.

Coulson doesn’t hug her, he wraps his hand around her shoulder, and Daisy doesn’t trust herself enough to initiate a hug.

“You know we don’t have definitive proof that you-”

“I know,” she cuts him off. “But I can’t risk it. Would you?”

Coulson forces himself - she sees it, cause she knows him - to wait before answering.

“No,” he admits. “I wouldn’t.”

If he were in Daisy’s situation he would take the same decision; and that was no small comfort for Daisy, when she had to make her choice. He’s the only one who tries to use logic to make her go back with them, the only one who isn’t appealing to her feelings.

Daisy looks intently into his eyes, trying to memorize them, trying to memorize _everything_ , realizing that she remembers how he got some of the tiny pink scars on his face. How could she say goodbye to someone who means as much to her as Coulson? To start with she never thought anyone would mean that much to her, that fact has always stunned her and made her careful and awkward around him.

“Thank you for everything,” she tells him, which is both clichéd and not nearly enough, but they are pressed for time, and there could never be enough time for this.

Coulson shakes his head, softly.

“I’m the one who’s grateful,” he says, squeezing her arm, squeezing so hard - why didn’t he hug her? - that Daisy can’t help but lift her hand up to his, cover his fingers with hers.

And she’s not exactly sure how long they spend like that, not saying anything, her hand on his hand on her shoulder, eyes locked, she’s so going to miss the way they have of holding each other’s gaze like this, of not needing words.

She’s not exactly sure how long it takes for any of them to speak again, she only knows it feels like an ending.

“Don’t save the universe all on your own,” Coulson adds, smiling a smile she knows well. “Leave a bit of trouble for future SHIELD to take care of.”

“I promise,” she tells him. “Say goodbye to Lola for me.”

Coulson nods, his fingers loosening the grip on her arm and finally letting go.

Daisy closes her eyes until she’s sure he’s turned around.

They walk into the elevator - Daisy tries to memorize everyone’s faces but she’s paralyzed, can only look at one.

It’s weirdly anticlimactic.

They go down the elevator and Daisy doesn’t even get to see them swallowed by the monolith. 

When enough time has passed she makes her way down to one of the observation decks.

 

+++

 

The silence in space is so loud, so defeaning - it’s freaking distracting, really.

Daisy keeps trying to let herself get sad, feel all she has to feel about having just lost another family, forever. She’s trying to comprehend a forever more definitive than any before, more definitive than death. 

But it’s hard looking at all these stars in front of her, all this endless space and its silence. 

She’s numb.

She understands because it’s happened before.

_You made the right choice,_ she keeps telling herself, thinking of all the people who might have died if she had been selfish. That’s the one thing she never wanted in her life, to be selfish, to cause others pain. There’s no price too high if she can avoid that.

She repeats herself that so she will have something to hold on when the reality of what she has just done hits her.

For now she is content with how calm it feels to just look out at the stars, even from this place, this place the Kree turned into a prison, this place where Daisy agreed to lose everything. The stars don’t seem to mind, they shine, and Daisy watches fascinated, grateful they put things into perspective.

“It’s still beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice says behind her.

Daisy turns around and doesn’t understand what she’s seeing.

“What are you doing back here?” she asks, her voice breaking.

Coulson doesn’t move, he keeps still by the door, perhaps waiting for Daisy to come to him.

Part of her is _almost_ angry, because accepting that she was never going to see his face again was the hardest thing Daisy has ever had to do. She almost wants to run to him and call him asshole or something.

They stand in opposite ends of the room for a moment, and then, at the same time, as if they had rehearsed this already, they fly to each other’s arms. Daisy can’t explain it any other way, it’s a corny expression yeah, but the force with which they embrace - her chest hurts in more than one way.

Coulson hugs her, the way he should have done when they said goodbye and Daisy understands, she understands that he had already made his choice back then.

She understands but-

she still can’t believe it.

“What are you doing here?” she repeats her question, this time to the curve of his neck.

She feels Coulson’s fingers on her neck, upwards, tangled in her hair.

“There was no way I could have left you here,” he says, putting his mouth very close to her ear so that he only has to whisper the words for Daisy to feel them through her whole body. “Ever,” he says.

She knows. Deep down she knew. 

“I’m so stupid,” she says, pulling back a bit to see his eyes. His beautiful eyes, the same that struck her as so surprisingly kind the first time she saw them, so unlike what she expected. “I wanted to ask you to stay with me. So badly.”

Coulson nods and takes his face in his hands and kisses her and Daisy thinks _thank god_ he understands.

“I was so stupid,” she repeats, between brief, sweet, rushed kisses, and this time she’s talking about something else and Coulson is laughing and she doesn’t think she’s ever heard that noise come out of him before.

_What happened to not being selfish?_ a voice speaks inside her head and she realizes how much Coulson is giving up for this moment, how much she’s robbing from him once more.

She tears her mouth from his, even though she has not enough willpower to leave his arms, or to stop digging her nails into his shoulders, keeping him glued to her.

“But now we’re on another timeline,” she says, horrified at what he’s done. “You can’t go back.”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I’ve taken everything… I…”

“Daisy,” he says, stopping her. He brushes his thumb across her cheek. “This is my choice. And I’m very happy I made it.”

She nods, because she doesn’t think she’s ever heard Coulson say that he’s happy - not like that anyway.

“Okay?” he asks, tilting his head to look closer into her eyes.

Daisy nods again, pressing their noses gently together. “Okay,” she replies.

The kisses are different now - not rushed, slower, deeper.

It’s surprising, yes, that what Coulson meant to her eventually turned into this big, tender thing. But he’s always full of surprises.

They spend a long time just kissing and hugging and burying their faces in each other’s collars, breathing each other’s scents, touching foreheads and noses and hands, blurting out terms of endearment, tasting each other’s names in a new way. When they finally let go they walk up to the glass window.

She swears the stars shine brighter now, or are more beautiful, but she knows it’s just her being a fool.

“What are we going to do now?” she asks, looking out.

“We have the whole universe to figure it out.”

Coulson sounds calm and almost - yeah, almost optimistic.

Daisy’s hand searches for his. Finds it.

“And all the future to do it,” she adds.

“Yeah.”

“We have to make sure the station is protected, I’m pretty sure the Kree won’t just leave them alone.”

“We could take the fight to them,” Coulson suggests.

“Go against the Kree? I like that idea.”

“I knew you would.” Then, he touches the side of her neck very carefully. “We have to get this thing out of you first.”

“It’s a big universe,” Daisy argues, and the joy she feels right now is like being drunk, but better, like feeling light, like flying without powers. 

“Yes, I’m sure we’ll find someone who can help,” Coulson agrees, his eyes full of exciting adventures in distant stars.

“We’re going to need a spaceship,” she points out, smirking at him, pulling at his arm until their hips meet.

“A cool spaceship,” Coulson demands.

Daisy grabs him by the neck, taking his lips between hers.

“Lola 2.0.”

He smiles against her mouth.

“I like that idea.”


End file.
